Emotional eating affects both men and women who turn to food for comfort, stress relief and to reward themselves. Many of us may tend to reach for junk food or sweets when feeling down lonely or bored. Unfortunately, this leads to eating too much sweets and fatty foods which can ruin all your weight-loss efforts. In fact, emotional eating does not reduce negative emotions, it usually makes you feel worse and guilty for overeating.
Here are some steps and strategies that you can follow to regain control of your emotions and get back on track with your weight-loss goals:
1-Find the Triggers
Many people have triggers that cause them to overeat. If you can identify those triggers, then you can take actions to manage those emotions before it gets out of control. If your work environment is stressful for example, try to shift your mindset and discover other ways to deal with negative emotions such as finding a colleague that you can talk to during lunch break, or find a quiet corner where you can relax to avoid overeating.
2-Try Meditation
Studies have shown that meditation health factory is a key treatment for binge eating and emotional eating. If you meditate every day, you will learn how to control your emotions and release the negativity, giving yourself the space to process those negative emotions before you get triggered to eat.
3-Practice Mindful Eating
Mindful eating is an important tool to help gain control over your eating habits, promote weight loss and overcome emotional eating. Mindful eating takes practice, try to eat more slowly, chew your food, remove distractions and stop eating when you are full. Those simple steps will help you become more aware of what you are eating and why you are eating it, which will help you stay in tune with what your body actually needs.
Finally, if you can’t control emotional eating seek for professional help. Therapy may help you understand why you eat emotionally and how to control it.
Written by Mariam Fadlallah, Kcal Nutritionist
